Extrapolation Theory and the Pricing of REIT Stocks

Transcription

1 IRES IRES Working Paper Series Extrapolation Theory and the Pricing of REIT Stocks Joseph T.L. OOI Department of Real Estate National University of Singapore James R. WEBB Department of Finance James J. Nance College of Business Administration, Cleveland State University Dingding ZHOU Department of Real Estate National University of Singapore

2 Extrapolation Theory and the Pricing of REIT Stocks Authors Joseph T.L. Ooi, James R. Webb, and Dingding Zhou Abstract This paper is the winner of the best paper on Real Estate Investment Trusts award (sponsored by the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT)] presented at the 2005 American Real Estate Society Annual Meeting. This study evaluates the investment prospects of value stocks in the real estate investment trust (REIT) market. Value stocks are defined as those that carry low prices relative to their earnings, dividends, book assets, or other measures of fundamental value. The empirical results show that from 1990 onwards, value REITs provide superior returns without exposing investors to higher risks. The evidence is consistent with the extrapolation theory, which attributes the mispricing to investors over extrapolating past corporate results into the future. Interestingly, the findings reveal that such extrapolation is asymmetric in the REIT market. While value REITs are underpriced in accordance with the extrapolation theory, no evidence is found that growth REITs are overpriced. The value anomaly also exhibited several temporal traits. Firstly, the value premium varies over time. Secondly, the magnitude of the premium is inversely associated with the market performance. Finally, the value anomaly is not evident in the pricing of REITs in the 1980s. The performance and pricing of real estate investment trust (REIT) stocks is a topic that attracts wide interests from both academics and practitioners. Generally, the literature is in agreement that there is little scope to for earning abnormal returns in both the domestic and international publicly traded real estate markets (Titman and Warga, 1986; Ling and Naranjo, 2002; Hamelink and Bond, Karolyi, and Sanders, 2003; and Hoesli, 2004). Indeed, Brounen, Eichholtz, and Ling (2005) recently find that it is difficult to beat the market through tactical timing and asset allocation strategies in the direct property markets. Although most researchers and practitioners believe that markets are generally efficient, there is a growing consensus that pockets of inefficiency exist within the broad market efficiency (Singal, 2004). In particular, a number of mispricings or inefficiencies JRER Vol. 29 No

3 28 Ooi, Webb, and Zhou have been uncovered, such as the small-size effect (McIntosh, Liang, and Tompkins, 1991), calendar and weekend effects (Colwell and Park, 1990; Giliberto, 1990; Liu and Mei, 1992; Redman, Manakyan and Liano, 1997; and Chan, Leung, and Wang, 2005), the initial public offering (IPO) anomaly (Wang, Chan, and Gau, 1992; and Ling and Ryngaert, 1997), and the momentum effect (Chui, Titman, and Wei, 2003). In the recent years, several researchers have investigated the comparative returns of value and growth stocks. Value stocks refer to those with low prices relative to earnings, dividends, book assets, or other measures of fundamental value, while growth stocks have historically shown faster growth rates in sales, earnings, and cash flow. An investment strategy that emphasizes value stocks is known as the contrarian investment or value strategy. The literature consistently shows that value stocks outperform the market and that the superior performance also exists in stock markets outside the United States, such as in Japan (Chan, Hamao, and Lakonishok, 1991) and France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom (Capaul, Rowley, and Sharpe, 1993). It also does not appear to be driven by data snooping, nor selection bias (Davis, 1994; Chan, Jegadeesh, and Lakonishok, 1995). This paper seeks to examine whether the adoption of a similar contrarian or value strategy in the REIT market will yield superior returns. The results of the empirical tests appear to support the argument that value strategy could be implemented successfully in the REIT market. Consistent with the findings of previous studies using data from the equities market, the findings in the current study reveal that value REITs produce superior returns between 1990 and Proponents of the efficient market hypothesis contend that the higher returns associated with value stocks are merely compensation for exposing investors to higher risk. The followup examination, however, failed to detect any significant increase in the risk of portfolios containing value REIT stocks. This suggests a systematic mispricing of value stocks in the REIT market, which contradicts the market efficiency hypothesis. Several related tests were then conducted to examine the applicability of the extrapolation theory to explain value anomaly in the REIT market. In 1994, Lakonishok, Shleifer, and Vishny (LSV) posit that systematic mispricing of value and growth stocks are caused by investors who naïvely extrapolate the past growth rates of firms. The extrapolation theory therefore prescribes that the portfolio comprising value stocks should register poor pre-formation performance but superior post-formation performance. Overall, the test results are consistent with the extrapolation model. First, portfolios of value REITs recorded poor returns before portfolio construction but higher than expected returns after the portfolio construction. Second, their ex-post dividend and funds from operation s (FFO) growth rate are significantly higher than that anticipated by the market. Third, their stock prices react positively to the announcements of quarterly earnings. These results indicate that poor past performances are naïvely extrapolated in the pricing value REITs, leading to an underpricing of their stocks. However, growth

4 Theory and the Pricing of REIT Stocks 29 stocks are not as over-priced in the REIT market as compared to the common stock markets, thus suggesting an asymmetric value anomaly in the REIT market. In particular, while the naïve extrapolation hypothesis applies to value stocks, it is less relevant in the pricing of growth stocks in the REIT market. This is a new finding that has not been discussed directly in prior literature. This research also makes the following contributions to the literature. This study focuses on the pricing of REIT stocks that are excluded from prior studies on value anomaly, which relied primarily on common stocks. The results also provide a better understanding of the pricing of REIT stocks in different market regimes, which was made possible by the structural change that the REIT market experienced in the 1990s. Extending the study period to cover a longer time horizon, the empirical results reveal that the value anomaly is a post-1990 phenomenon. Prior to that period, no evidence was found that value stocks were systematically mispriced in the REIT market. This may be explained by the fact that pre-1990, REITs were primarily passive pass-through vehicles. Many of them were also finite-horizon REITs, which limited their growth potential. Ling and Ryngaert (1997) provide a detailed discussion on the differences between pre- and post-1990 equity REIT IPOs. Since growth opportunities contributed little to their valuation, it is argued that the pricing of REIT stocks in the early days was more straightforward (Chui, Titman, and Wei, 2003). Valuation of REIT stocks became more challenging in the 1990s with the advent of a new generation of actively managed and high growth REITs and the introduction of the UPREIT structure to defer tax liability. Others, however, may argue that prior to the modern REITs, valuation of REIT stocks was problematic in other ways, primarily due to fewer sophisticated and institutional investors. The results also reveal that the size of the value anomaly is related inversely to the performance of the overall REIT market. This means that the return spread between value and growth portfolios is squeezed in a buoyant market and exaggerated in a depressed market. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. First, there is a review of the major literature. Second, there is a discussion of the data and research methodology. Third, there is a presentation of the test results on whether value REIT stocks produce superior return. Fourth, there is an examination of whether the value strategy exposes investors to higher systematic risk. Fifth, there is an examination of the role of naïve expectations in the mispricing of REIT stocks. Sixth, there is a discussion of whether the value premium is persistent over different study periods. Finally, the paper closes with concluding remarks. Literature Review According to the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), systematic risk is the only relevant factor in asset pricing. However, the significance of beta in explaining cross-sectional returns of REITs and common stocks has been diminishing over time (Chan, Hendershott, and Sanders, 1990; and Fama and French, 1992). JRER Vol. 29 No

5 30 Ooi, Webb, and Zhou Empirical studies have found that a multi-factor model is better able to explain price movements in the equities market. Several authors have shown that any observed superior real estate performance may be an illusion arising from an omission of certain fundamental factors in the estimates of risk (Chan, Hendershott, and Sanders, 1990; Liu, Grissom and Hartzell, 1995; and Peterson and Hsieh, 1997). 1 Fama and French (1992) similarly contend that value stocks are fundamentally more risky than growth stocks. Consequently, the superior returns associated with value stocks are merely compensation for exposing investors to higher risk. Chen and Zhang (1998) further highlight that value stocks are riskier because they are usually firms under distress, have high financial leverage, and face uncertainty in future earnings. Studies by LSV (1994) and others have, however, shown that value stocks are not exposed to more risk compared to growth stocks. LSV propose that the superior returns associated value strategies can be attributed to a systematic mispricing of value and growth stocks. In particular, they posit that because investors excessively extrapolate past growth rates, they tend to be overly pessimistic about the prospects of value stocks due to their poor track record. Conversely, investors are overly optimistic on the prospect of growth stocks simply because they have done well in the past. When these expectations are not realized, it results in higher (lower) subsequent returns for value (growth) stocks. This is known as the extrapolation theory. Subsequent studies by Chan, Jegadeesh, and Lakonishok (1995), La Porta, Lakonishok, Shleifer, and Vishny (1997) and Skinner and Sloan (2002) show that the difference in the returns of value and growth stocks stems from expectational errors in their future performance. Consistent with the extrapolation model, these studies support the hypothesis that investors generally underestimate (overestimate) the future earnings of value (growth) stocks. La Porta et al., for example, observe that a significant portion of the return difference between value and growth stocks could be attributable to earnings surprises that are systematically more positive for value stocks. Skinner and Sloan similarly observe that growth stocks exhibit an asymmetrically large negative price response to negative earnings surprise. They attribute the inferior return of growth stocks to overoptimistic expectational errors that are corrected through subsequent negative earnings surprises. If a value strategy can indeed yield higher return without exposing investors to more risk, a natural question to consider is why the mispricing could persist in an efficient market. In particular, why don t professional arbitrageurs exploit this opportunity and in the process, eliminate this profit? Some plausible explanations of the persistence of the value anomaly include arbitrage risk, transaction costs, and unsophisticated investors. Shleifer and Vishny (1997) argue that the volatility of arbitrage returns may deter arbitrage activity, while Ali, Hwang, and Trombley (2003) posit that the value premium cannot be readily arbitraged away due to idiosyncratic risk. Contending that idiosyncratic volatility is of greater concern than systematic volatility to specialized arbitrageurs, they note that arbitrageurs

6 Theory and the Pricing of REIT Stocks 31 desire to keep the ratio of reward-to-risk over shorter horizons high deters arbitrage activity in high volatility stocks. 2 Other authors who have linked arbitrage risks to the persistence of value premiums include Xu and Malkiel (2003), who find that the idiosyncratic volatility of common stocks is associated with the degree to which their shares are owned by financial institutions and institutional investors. LSV (1994) also point out that most investors have shorter time horizons than are required for value strategies to consistently payoff. They contend that a value strategy that takes 3 to 5 years to pay off but may underperform the market in the meantime might simply be too risky for money managers from the viewpoint of career concerns, especially if the strategy itself is more difficult to justify to sponsors, (page 1576). So far, what is known about the superior returns of value stocks comes from empirical evidence in the stock market. In this paper, the presence of a value anomaly is examined in the REIT market and whether the observed superior returns of value strategies are attributable to higher fundamental risk or excessive extrapolation by investors. A working paper by Gentry, Jones, and Mayer (2004) bears close resemblance to the current paper. They observe large positive excess returns (with alphas between 0.9% and 1.8% per month) associated with a strategy of buying stocks trading at a discount to net asset value (NAV) and simultaneously shorting stocks trading at a premium to NAV. Focusing on short-term returns (oneday, one-week, one-month, and three-month holding periods) based on REIT data from 1990, their results collaborate with the finding in this study of superior returns being associated with value stocks. Pagliari (2001), however, finds that value REITs did not outperform growth REITs for the period His contrasting result could be attributed to the different study period and the sorting mechanism employed. Pagliari employed excess dividend yield, which is derived from a hedonic model, as a sorting criterion to separate REIT stocks into value and growth portfolios. The aggregation of data for the whole of may also obscure the results due to temporal structural changes in the REIT market. The current study can be differentiated from the two previous studies in the following ways. First, the payoff is examined over a longer time frame, namely one to five years. The contrarian strategy, unlike other investment strategies, involves a longer horizon and is thus better suited for long-term investors who do not trade frequently in the market. Second, a standard sorting criterion is employed, namely book-to-market ratio (B/ M), which is more consistently and readily available for practical application. Third, the associated risk of value REITs is also examined. Three different risk measures, namely standard deviation, beta, and a factor loading derived from the Fama and French (1996) multifactor asset pricing model, are employed. Fourth, the research examines the validity of the extrapolation theory in explaining value anomaly in the REIT market. The essence of the extrapolation is that investors are excessively optimistic about glamour stocks and excessively pessimistic about value stocks because they tie their expectations of future growth to past growth (LSV, 1994). Three related tests are conducted for this purpose. Finally, there is an examination of the temporal payoff of value strategies over different market regimes. JRER Vol. 29 No

7 32 Ooi, Webb, and Zhou Data and Construction of Value Portfolios The empirical research is carried out in three phases: whether value REIT stocks produce superior returns as compared to growth REIT stocks; whether value REIT stocks expose investors to higher risks; and if not, is the mispricing caused by excessive extrapolation by naïve investors. The main study sample includes all REITs that publicly traded on the NYSE, AMEX, and NASDAQ between 1990 and The financial statements as well as earning announcements of the individual REITs are extracted from the COMPUSTAT database. Data on their stock returns are collected from the CRSP database. Following LSV (1994), Skinner and Sloan (2002), and Ali, Hwang, and Trombley (2003), B/ M is used as the sorting criteria to construct five different portfolios in June each year. Accounting data for fiscal yearend, Year t1, and market value of equity at end June, year t, are employed to compute the individual REIT s B/M for each year. The REITs with negative book value and those with extreme B/M values (i.e., the highest and lowest 0.5%) are omitted from the portfolio construction, which leaves on average 107 REITs each year. Based on their B/M, REIT stocks are then sorted into five portfolios each year from 1991 to Although the sample period is from 1990 to 2003, the portfolio construction starts from 1991 because the B/M for the preceding year was used as a sorting variable. Similarly, portfolio construction is terminated in 2000 to allow for a full holding period (3-year) to be analyzed. The REIT stocks in the top 20% B/M are placed in the value portfolio (Q1), while those in the bottom 20% are placed in growth portfolio (Q5). The remaining REIT stocks are placed in the intermediate portfolios, Q2 (21% 40% B/ M), Q3 (41% 60% B/ M), and Q4 (61% 80% B/M). This produces a total of 50 portfolios over ten years. The B/M for the constructed portfolios is tabulated in Exhibit 1. The B/M of common stocks over the same sample period is also presented for comparison. The average B/ M for the whole sample is 0.91, ranging from 0.32 for the portfolio containing growth REITs (Q5) to 1.90 for the portfolio containing value REITs (Q1). The B/M for Q2, Q3, and Q4 are 0.96, 0.73, and 0.55, respectively. 3 The data show that the average B/M for Q2, Q3, Q4, and Q5 (growth) portfolios for REIT stocks are quite comparable to the common stocks. The B/M for equities is only marginally higher than the corresponding portfolios for REIT stocks. However, the B/M for Q1 comprising value REIT stocks is only 1.90, which is noticeably lower than the corresponding B/ M for equities (4.79). Consequently, the average B/M for REIT stocks over the study period is 0.91, which is lower than the average B/M for common stocks (1.39). This may be attributable to firstly, omission of REIT stocks with extreme B/M from the sample and secondly, REIT stocks are unlikely to be discounted too deeply because of the tangibility of property assets owned by REITs. Nevertheless, an earnings-price ratio and dividend-price ratio were also employed as alternative sorting mechanisms for the portfolio construction. The empirical results are robust to the sorting criteria adopted. Hence, only the results based on the B/M sorting criterion are reported in this paper.

8 Theory and the Pricing of REIT Stocks 33 Exhibit 1 Characteristics of Value and Growth Portfolios ( ) Q1 a Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 b All Firms Common Stocks B/ M All REIT Stocks B/ M ME Leverage Equity REIT Stocks B/ M ME Leverage Notes: REIT stocks are assigned to five quintile portfolios based on the value of B /M, calculated as book equity in year t 1 divided by market value of equity at the end of June of year t. For each B/ M quintile, means of the following variables are calculated: ME is market value of equity in US$ millions at the end of June of year t. Leverage is the long-term debt divided by common equity. The B / M ratios for common stocks ( ) are obtained from K.R. French s Data Library. a Value b Growth The wide range observed for the average B/M of value and growth portfolios shows that REIT stocks are not homogenous. At any point in time, there is still a good spread of both value and growth REIT stocks in the market to allow investors to employ the contrarian investment strategy. This counters the possibility of the B/M being an arbitrary cutoff point for the construction of value and growth portfolios in REIT markets. The examination further reveals that the constructed portfolios based on the B/M are fairly persistence. In particular, 59.5% of the individual REITs remained in the same quintile portfolio the subsequent year. Of the remaining REITs that switched quintiles in the following year, almost all involved shifts to the adjacent quantile with less than 3% actually switched by more than two quintiles within a year. The regular constituents of Q1 and Q5 portfolios are presented in the Appendix. 4 In addition, the average size (market capitalization) and leverage (long-term debt to common equity) of the respective portfolios are also analyzed in Exhibit 1. Overall, the average REIT in the sample has a market capitalization of US$ 485 million and a debt-equity ratio of With respect to firm size, the average market capitalization for REITs in the value portfolio (US$ 143 million) is significantly smaller than those in the growth portfolio (US$ 796 million). Furthermore, firm size increases monotonically with the B/ M, which suggests the necessity to control for size-effect in the subsequent examination of the portfolio JRER Vol. 29 No

9 34 Ooi, Webb, and Zhou returns. The average debt-equity ratio of Q1 (1.34) is much lower than that for Q5 (2.16). At first glance, this may appear rather surprising as firms with low B/M have incentives to employ more equity in their capital structure since their shares are trading at higher price multiples. The relationship between leverage and B/M could be due to the size effect since small-sized firms may not have access to the public debt market due to lack of a track record and economies of scale. Consequently, they rely more on equity issues, while larger firms tend to issue more public debt (Harris and Raviv, 1991; and Ooi, 2000). In addition, it also indicates that REITs with high growth expectations tend to borrow more, which is not surprising due to their high dividend payout ratio. Returns from Value REITs In order to determine whether the portfolios containing value REITs produce superior returns, their raw returns (equally-weighted) were computed for each portfolio over three holding periods: 12 months, 24 months, and 36 months beginning in July of year t. If a stock disappears from the CRSP database during a particular year, its return is replaced until the end of that year with a return on a corresponding size-quintile portfolio. At the end of each year, the portfolio is rebalanced and each surviving stock gets the same weight. The returns on the value portfolios (Q1) and the growth portfolios (Q5) are then compared. For the contrarian investment strategy to payoff in the REIT market, the portfolio return of Q1 should be significantly higher than that of Q5. To control for the size-effect, the holding period returns are also adjusted by subtracting off the annual return on a benchmark portfolio consisting of REIT stocks in the same size quintile. 5 Exhibit 2 presents the holding period returns for 12 months, 24 months, and 36 months after portfolio formation (Ret1, Ret2, Ret3) for respective the portfolios, as well as for the whole sample. The corresponding value-weighted and sizeadjusted returns are reported as WRet1, WRet2, WRet3, and SRet1, SRet2, SRet3, respectively. The numbers presented are the average across all formation periods in the sample. Time-series variations over the sample period are used to compute the significance level. The Newey and West (1987) procedure was applied to correct for serial correlation in returns induced by overlapping holding periods for return horizons greater than one year. The difference in returns of the extreme portfolios (Q1 Q5) is also reported. This corresponds to a trading strategy that buys low B/M stocks and shorts an equal dollar amount of high B/M stocks in the REIT market. As noted by Gentry, Jones, and Mayer (2004), this strategy should eliminate exposure to the industry factor if there is any factor common to all REITs. The positive figures reported for Q1 Q5 indicate that the average return from value portfolios is higher than the growth portfolios over the different holding horizons. In particular, the equally-weighted return spread between value and growth REIT portfolios is 8.5%, 27.9%, and 48.7% for the one-, two-, and threeyear holding period, respectively. This is comparable to the value premium of

10 Theory and the Pricing of REIT Stocks 35 Exhibit 2 Holding Period Returns to B/M-based Portfolio Strategies ( ) Panel A: All REIT Stocks Q1 a Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 b Difference Q1 Q5 Equally-weighted Period Returns Ret * Ret *** Ret *** Value-weighted Period Returns WRet ** WRet *** WRet ** Size-adjusted Period Returns SRet *** SRet *** SRet *** Panel B: Equity REIT Stocks Equally-weighted Period Returns Ret * Ret *** Ret *** Value-weighted Period Returns WRet * WRet ** WRet ** Size-adjusted Period Returns SRet *** SRet *** SRet *** Notes: REIT stocks are assigned to five quintile portfolios based on the value of B /M, calculated as book equity in year t 1 divided by market value of equity at the end of June of year t. For each B/M quintile, means of the following returns beginning July of year t are calculated: Re1, Re2, and Re3 are the one-year, two-year, and three-year buy-and-hold equally-weighted return, respectively; WRe1, WRe2, and WRe3 are the value-weighted one-year, two-year, and three-year buy-and-hold return, respectively; SRe1, SRe2, and SRe3 are the size-adjusted one-year, two-year, and three-year buy-and-hold return, respectively. Statistical significance is reported for difference in the values of Q1 and Q5 portfolios, and Q1 Q5 difference. a Value b Growth *Significant at the 10% level. **Significant at the 5% level. ***Significant at the 1% level. JRER Vol. 29 No

11 36 Ooi, Webb, and Zhou 8.9%, 21.6%, and 30.7% recorded by Ali, Hwang, and Trombley (2003) for common stocks for the period The corresponding premiums for the value-weighted returns over the study period are 1.9%, 10.4%, and 6.0%. After adjusting for size effect, the return spreads are still significant at 4.1%, 9.7%, and 12.2% over the three holding periods. 6 The return superiority of the value strategy also appears to increase with the investment horizon. However, a closer examination of the cumulative size-adjusted returns of Q1 over the three-year holding period reveals that most of the positive returns for the value portfolio occurred in year 1 (3.5%). Conversely, the negative size-adjusted holding period returns for the growth portfolio (Q5) came in the second (5.0%) and third year (4.6%). This suggests that the positive payoff from a value strategy takes a shorter time to realize than the negative payoff from a growth strategy. To check the robustness of the empirical results, the tests were repeated after having excluded mortgage REITs from the sample, which may not behave as pure equity REITs and are exposed to credit and repayment risk. The results are reported in Panel B of Exhibit 2. While the magnitude of the size-adjusted return differentials are lower in the study sample comprising only equity REITs, the results are generally robust to the inclusion of mortgage REITs in the earlier sample. In summary, the results indicate that adopting a contrarian investment strategy in the REIT market can produce superior returns. Proponents of the efficient market hypothesis would argue that the extra returns to value REITs are simply compensation for their higher risk. In other words, they argue that the value REITs is fundamentally more risky than growth stocks. This paper next examines whether value REIT stocks are indeed more risky than growth REIT stocks. Risks Associated with Value REITs Based on the risk-based explanation suggested by Fama and French (1992), any superior returns derived from a value strategy would be accompanied by higher portfolio risks. Three conventional risk measures, namely the standard deviation, the beta derived from the Sharpe-Linter s CAPM model (Equation 1], as well as the factor loading derived from Fama and French (1996) multifactor asset pricing model (Equation 2) are used as comparative measures as defined below: R R (R R ) e. (1) i ƒ i i M ƒ R R b (R R ) ssmb hhml e. (2) i ƒ i i M ƒ i i i Where R i is the monthly portfolio returns, R f is the three-month Treasury bill rate, and R M is the value-weighted monthly return on all NYSE, AMEX, and NASDAQ stocks. The intercept, i, is the average excess return on the portfolio after

12 Theory and the Pricing of REIT Stocks 37 adjusting for the known risk factors. The beta of the ith REIT stock ( i ) is derived using 36 monthly-after-formation returns, which are obtained from the CRSP database. SMB (small minus big) and HML (high minus low) are the Fama and French size- and B/ M-factors obtained from French s website. If the risk-based explanation is correct, the value REIT portfolio should exhibit higher risk than the growth REIT portfolio. Exhibit 3 presents the results. Panel A also reports two risk-adjusted return measures, namely the Treynor ratio, which is the premium earned by the portfolio relative to its total risk, and the Sharpe ratio, which is the premium earned by the portfolio relative to its systematic risk. The mean monthly-after-formation return for value REITs is higher than growth REITs (2.1% vs. 1.3%). Although the Exhibit 3 Risk Measures for Value and Growth REIT Portfolios ( ) Q1 a Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 b Panel A: Summary Statistics Means Standard Deviation Sharpe ratio Treynor ratio Panel B: Market Risk (Beta): R i R f i i (R M R f ) e i i ** * i 0.217* 0.217* 0.292** 0.360** 0.265** Var() (Involatility) Panel C: Fama and French Factor Loadings: R i R f i b i (R M R f ) s i SMB h i HML e i i ** b i 0.372** 0.423*** 0.459*** 0.573*** 0.485*** s i 0.583*** 0.417*** 0.293** 0.468*** 0.395*** h i 0.577*** 0.602*** 0.459** 0.674*** 0.630*** Notes: At the end of each June between 1991 and 2000, five quintile portfolios are formed based on the value of B/M, calculated as book equity in year t 1 divided by market value of equity at the end of June of year t. SMB and HML are Fama and French size- and B/M-factors. The t-statistic is computed as the mean divided by the standard error of the annual estimates. a Value b Growth *Significant at the 10% level. **Significant at the 5% level. ***Significant at the 1% level. JRER Vol. 29 No

13 38 Ooi, Webb, and Zhou standard deviation of returns for the value portfolio (4.2%) is higher than the growth portfolio (3.3%), the difference is negligible once the returns are adjusted for the size effect. In particular, the standard deviation of the value portfolio (0.63%) becomes marginally lower than the growth portfolio s (0.68%). Both measures show that the average risk-adjusted returns for the value portfolios are higher than the growth portfolios. Panel B shows that the average systematic risk of the value portfolios (0.217) is lower than that for the growth portfolios (0.265). Similarly, the estimation results of the multifactor model in Panel C show that the HML factor loading for the value REITs is lower than the growth REITs. Exhibit 3 also reveals that the alphas for Equation 1 and 2 are positive and statistically significant for the value portfolios. The intercepts for the other quintile portfolios (Q2, Q3, Q4, and Q5) are not statistically significant, which indicates that there are no abnormal returns to be gained from holding these portfolios. Using the single-factor model, excess returns on the value portfolio averaged 1.47% per month, as compared to 0.66% per month for the portfolio comprising growth REITs. After adjusting for the three known risk factors, the excess return for the value portfolio (Q1) are still statistically significant and yielding an average 1.09% per month. Overall, the lower systematic risk and the higher alphas observed for Q1 vis-à-vis the other portfolios indicate that a value strategy is able to produce higher abnormal return, although it does not expose investors to more risk. This is inconsistent with the risk-based argument. Furthermore, a number of authors have argued that the value premium of stocks with high idiosyncratic risk cannot be readily arbitraged away and as a result, they experience greater systematic mispricing (see Shleifer and Vishny, 1997; and Ali, Hwang and Trombley, 2003). Following standard practice, arbitrage risk is represented by the idiosyncratic return volatility (measured by square root of residual variance derived from the CAPM model). Panel B of Exhibit 3 reveals that the idiosyncratic risk of REITs decreases monotonically with the B/ M ratio. Noticeably, the idiosyncratic risk of value REITs (3.92%) is much higher than the corresponding idiosyncratic risk of growth REITs (2.99%). This disparity provides evidence on the role of arbitrage risk in deterring arbitrageurs from exploiting this mispricing related to value REIT stocks. Corresponding to lower idiosyncratic risk for growth REITs, they are less prone to mispricing as compared to value REITs. Why are Value REITs Underpriced? The empirical results thus far indicate that value REIT stocks exhibit superior returns and that the risk-based argument cannot adequately explain the superior returns. The mispricing is found to be persistent due to the high arbitrate cost associated with value stocks. Since the risk-based theory cannot explain the anomalous pricing of value REIT stocks, the role of naïve extrapolation will be examined. In essence, LSV (1994) suggests that investors are excessively optimistic about growth stocks and tend to overvalue them. Conversely, they are excessively pessimistic about value stocks and tend to undervalue them.

14 Theory and the Pricing of REIT Stocks 39 Pre- & Post-Formation Returns The performance of the value and growth REITs in this study will be examined before and after portfolio formation. The performance of value and growth REIT portfolios is traced over an eight-year horizon (three years before portfolio formation plus five years after portfolio formation). The extrapolation model prescribes that value portfolios (Q1) should register poor pre-formation returns but superior post-formation performance, while growth portfolios (Q5) should produce higher returns prior to portfolio formation but inferior returns thereafter. In addition, the return difference between value and growth stocks (Q1 Q5) would decrease gradually in the post formation period as investors correct their erroneous expectations. The results, presented in Exhibit 4, are consistent with the predictions of the extrapolation model. Panel A shows that portfolios comprising growth REITs had higher pre-formation returns than portfolios comprising value REITs. However, Exhibit 4 Pre- and Post-Formation Performance of Value and Growth Portfolios ( ) Variable Q1 a Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 b Difference Q1 Q5 Panel A: Pre-formation Returns Ret(3) Ret(2) * Ret(1) * B: Post-formation Returns Ret(1) ** Ret(2) *** Ret(3) *** Ret(4) * Ret(5) Notes: The i th year return, Ret(i), is calculated for each constructed portfolio. The return difference between the value and growth portfolio Q1 Q5 difference is also calculated. Sample period for portfolio construction starts in 1991 and ends in The t-statistic is computed as the mean divided by the standard error of the annual estimates. a Value b Growth *Significant at the 10% level. **Significant at the 5% level. ***Significant at the 1% level. JRER Vol. 29 No

15 40 Ooi, Webb, and Zhou their performance lagged behind value stocks after the portfolio construction (see Panel B). Tracing the differential premium, the superior performance of the strategy to buy value REITs and short growth REITs is strongest in the second year after portfolio construction (14.5%). From then on, the superior performance of value REIT stocks gradually decreases to 10.6% in Year 3 and 7.6% in Year 4. The return differential between value and growth portfolios becomes weakly significant by the fourth year and insignificant by the fifth year after formation. This reflects the length of time taken for the market to adjust its outlook of the respective stocks. Expected and Actual Growth Rates In addition to the pre- and post-formation returns, the actual future growth rates of the respective portfolios are compared to their past and expected growth rates (as implied in their valuation multiples). The valuation multiples are represented by the REITs dividend yield and the funds from operations (FFO)-price ratio. The annual dividend per share and FFO per share in the year (t1) are employed, i.e., before portfolio formation over the stock price at end June of year t. The expected growth rates are then compared with the actual growth rates of the growth and value REIT portfolios to determine the extent of errors made in extrapolating the stocks future growth rates. If the extrapolation model is correct, the actual future growth rate of value REIT stocks would surpass the growth rate expected by the market. Conversely, the actual growth rate of growth REIT stocks would lag behind the market s expectation. 7 Exhibit 5 presents the valuation multiples, as well as the past and actual future growth rates of the REIT portfolios. Panel A shows that value REITs tend to have higher dividend yield and lower FFO-price multiples than growth REITs. The average dividend yield for value and growth portfolios are 9.8% and 8.0%, respectively. Similarly, the average FFO multiple for REIT stocks in the value portfolio is 6.8 times (1/14.7) as compared to 10.5 (1/0.095) times for REIT stocks in the growth portfolio. All else being constant, this can be interpreted in terms of higher expected growth rates for Q5. 8 As predicted, the dividend and FFO of growth stocks indeed grew faster than value stocks prior to portfolio formation. As mentioned by LSV (1994), the difference in FFO multiple and dividend yield between the value and growth portfolios suggests that the market was expecting these growth differences to persist for many years. Panel C of Exhibit 5, however, reveals that the market s expectation did not materialize. Over the first two years after portfolio formation, dividends received in the growth portfolio grew by only 3.5% (as compared to a 12.1% growth rate prior to the portfolio formation). Conversely, the growth rate of value REIT stocks increased from 7.7% before portfolio formation to 24.8% two years after portfolio formation. The data based on the FFO growth rates tells a similar story. Consistent with the findings of LSV, the results suggest that the

16 Theory and the Pricing of REIT Stocks 41 Exhibit 5 Past and Future Growth Rate on Value and Growth REIT Stocks ( ) Panel A: Fundamental Variables Q1 a Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 b Difference Q1 Q5 D/P ** FFO/P *** Panel B: Past Growth Rate ADG (3,0) ** AFG (3,0) *** Panel C: Actual Future Growth Rate ADG (0,2) ** AFG (0,2) * First Year After Formation ADG (0,1) AFG (0,1) Second Year After Formation ADG (1,2) *** AFG (1,2) ** Third Year after Formation ADG (2,3) AFG (2,3) Notes: D/P is the ratio of dividends per share to stock price, whilst FFO/P is the ratio of funds from operation per share to stock price. The ratios are calculated based on the accounting figures one year before portfolio formation (year t 1) and stock price as of end-june. ADG (i,j) AFG (i,j) is the average annual growth rate of dividends and FFO, respectively, for the portfolio from year i to year j. Sample period for portfolio construction starts from 1991 to The t-statistic is computed as the mean divided by the standard error of the annual estimates. a Value b Growth *Significant at the 10% level. **Significant at the 5% level. ***Significant at the 1% level. superior post formation return on value REIT stocks are caused by a naïve extrapolation of past growth rates into the future. Further analysis reveals that the post formation growth rate of value portfolio relative to the growth portfolio is most significant in the second year after its formation. In particular, the difference in the dividend growth rate between the value and growth portfolios is 18.7% in the second year, as compared to only 5.4% in the first year and 7.9% in the third JRER Vol. 29 No

17 42 Ooi, Webb, and Zhou year. This suggests that a strategy of buying value stocks and shorting growth stocks in the REIT market will provide higher payoff for investment horizons that spread over two years. Announcement Effects Lastly, the market s reaction to earnings announcements is examined. The extrapolation model prescribes that earnings surprises in the five years after portfolio formation are systematically positive for value REIT stocks and negative for growth REIT stocks. Following the methodology employed by La Porta et al. (1997), the quarterly earnings announcement returns are computed over a threeday window (t 1, t 1) around the event. The announcement dates are collected from the COMPUSTAT database. For each quarter, the three-day, buy-and-hold portfolio event returns are computed assuming the stocks in the portfolio are equally-weighted. The earnings returns are then aggregated into annual intervals by summing up the four quarterly earnings announcement returns in each of the five post formation years. For the extrapolation model to hold, market reactions to the quarterly earnings announcements should be more positive for the value portfolios as compared to the growth portfolios. Exhibit 6 reports the returns over a three-day window (1, 1) around the quarterly earnings announcement date for value and growth REIT portfolios. Both the unadjusted and size-adjusted event returns give the same conclusion. The market reacts more positively to earnings announcements of the value portfolios compared to the growth portfolios. In the first year after portfolio formation, cumulative event returns (size-adjusted) for the growth and value portfolios are 0.84% and 1.01%, respectively. The differences in the earnings announcement price response is more pronounced from the second year onwards. The effects eventually fade off in Year 5. The difference in the cumulative event returns for the value and growth portfolios increased to 0.79% in Year 2 (Q05 Q08), 1.28% in Year 3 (Q09 Q12), 0.90% in Year 4 (Q13 Q16), and 0.18% in Year 5. This is more or less comparable to the mean difference observed by La Porta et al. (1997) on common stocks: 0.89% in Year 1, 1.5% in Year 2, 1.30% in Year 3, 0.76% in Year 4, and 0.03% in Year 5. Overall, the empirical evidence indicates that a marginal portion of the return difference between value and growth stocks is attributable to earnings surprises that are systematically more positive for value stocks. However, contrary to the expectation of the extrapolation model, growth REITs are found to demonstrate significant positive returns during the announcement event, especially in the first two years. This suggests the naïve extrapolation theory applies more to the underpricing of high B/M REITs (and less to the overpricing of low B/M REITs). Unlike in the equities market, REIT stocks with low B/Ms are not overpriced due to the tangibility of the real estate assets owned by REITs. This also means that the past performance of growth REITs is still a good predictor of their future performance, at least for another two years. This conclusion collaborates with the

18 Theory and the Pricing of REIT Stocks 43 Exhibit 6 Earnings Announcement Price Response ( ) Panel A: Raw Return Value Growth Mean Difference Q01 Q %** 1.96%*** 0.16% Q05 Q %*** 1.24%*** 1.20% Q09 Q %*** 1.64%*** 0.84% Q13 Q %*** 1.56%*** 0.68% Q17 Q %*** 1.52%** 0.71% Panel B: Size-Adjusted Return Q01 Q % 0.84%* 0.17% Q05 Q %*** 0.95%** 0.79% Q09 Q %*** 0.58% 1.28% Q13 Q %*** 0.63% 0.90% Q17 Q %*** 1.30%*** 0.18% Notes: The equal-weighted earnings announcement returns for each portfolio are measured quarterly over a three-day window (1, 1) around the COMPUSTAT Industry Quarterly data file. Sample period for portfolio construction runs from 1991 to The earnings announcement returns are then summed up over the four quarters in each of the first four post-formation years (Q01 Q04..., Q13 Q16). *Significant at the 10% level. **Significant at the 5% level. ***Significant at the 1% level. Chui, Titman, and Wei (2003) finding that momentum is the dominant predictor of REIT returns in the post-1990 period. Although the relationship between momentum and B/M was weak, they find the momentum increases with firm size. Inter-temporal Performance of Value REITs Is the superior return associated with value REITs unique to the sample period, which happened to coincide with the dramatic evolving phase of the REIT market? Exhibit 7 traces the average market capitalization and number of publicly traded REITs from 1980 to It is clear that the REIT market witnessed a sharp increase in both the average firm size and the number of REITs after 1990, with the number of publicly traded REITs rising from 138 in 1991 to 193 in The average market capitalization of publicly traded REITs grew from below US$ 100 million prior to 1991 to above US$ 1.5 billion in The growth follows a general recovery in the U.S. property markets, as well as the lifting of certain JRER Vol. 29 No

19 Number of REITs Exhibit 7 Growth of Publicly Traded REITs ( ) 1,800 1,600 1,400 1,200 1, Market Cap (US $ million) 44 Ooi, Webb, and Zhou Number of REIT Average Market Capitalization Source: NAREIT Website, 2005.

20 Theory and the Pricing of REIT Stocks 45 Exhibit 8 Returns to B /M-based Portfolio Strategies ( ) Variable Q1 a Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 b All Firms Q1 Q5 Difference Panel A: All REITs B/ M *** ME *** Ret Ret * Ret SRet SRet SRet * Panel B: Equity REITs Only B/ M *** ME *** Ret * Ret * Ret SRet SRet SRet Notes: REITs are assigned to five quintile portfolios based on the value of B/M, calculated as book equity in year t 1 divided by market value of equity at the end of June of year t. For each B/M quintile, means of the following variables are calculated: ME is market value of equity in millions at the end of June of year t. Ret1, Ret2, and Ret3 are the one-year, two-year, and threeyear buy-and-hold return, respectively, beginning July of year t. SRet1, SRet2, and SRet3 are the size-adjusted one-year, two-year, and three-year buy-and-hold return, respectively, beginning in July of year t, defined as raw buy-and-hold return less size-quintile return, where size deciles are based on all REIT stocks. Statistical significance is reported for the difference in the values of Q1 and Q5 portfolios, and the Q1 Q5 difference. a Value b Growth *Significant at the 10% level. **Significant at the 5% level. ***Significant at the 1% level. JRER Vol. 29 No